Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has chalked out ambitious plans to set up around 500 Mission Shakti Markets across the state to enable the people to purchase products of self-help groups (SHGs).
To begin with, these markets will be set up in Bhubaneswar within three months to make available SHG products round the year. The move will benefit the public as well as the SHGs.
The government will provide a loan of Rs 50,000 crore to SHGs in the next five years to include more women in the mission, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Mission Shakti, Sujata R Karthikeyan said.
Plans are afoot to set up a state-level federation to strengthen the Mission Shakti programme, she said at a function on Sunday.
Noting that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had launched Mission Shakti 20 years ago with an aim to empower women at the grassroots level, Karthikeyan said the programme has achieved significant success over the years.
The SHGs played a major role during the COVID pandemic and recently nearly 4,000 women members of 300 SHGs stitched 30 lakh national flag for the ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ campaign. Similarly, women are engaged in electricity bill collection and meter reading, she added.
Stating that the state now has over 70 lakh members of Mission Shakti, she said Mission Shakti members are there across the state and the programme has taken the shape of an enterprise.
Successful entrepreneurs and SHGs were also felicitated at the function.
